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[WWPSD]

Not happy, not sad about the breakup. Mostly wishing I could just forget about this comic for a year or so, I could read a big volume of comics at once!

*edit*

Just because while I enjoy the art; I've always been a greedy reader. I always want to know how it ends, but after going through a great storyline.

[eyosgkxb]

How about you go away for a year and then come back.

[Dliessmgg]

How about you remove that sig pic and stop being a dick.

[Is it cold in here?]

Ever wished you could forget QC, just so you could have the fun of "discovering" it again?

[bpghayward]

I don't know how Jeph did it, but that relationship has always felt "temporary" somehow.

[Cartilage Head]

Who is Martin.

[throw_aways]

I don't know how Jeph did it, but that relationship has always felt "temporary" somehow.

Word. I was confused that many people yesterday were denying that Dora and Marten were actually going to break up- it was clearly time. They did each other well and helped each other break out of some boxes, but Dora's fear was right- Marten never was 100% about her, I don't think. When they moved in together, I was actually really surprised. I don't want them to be unhappy, so the break up is a temporary bummer, but they'll be better in the long run.

If Marten dates someone new, its going to be someone who hits on him at the library or something, not any of the usual gang.

[eyosgkxb]

How about you remove that sig pic and stop being a dick.

Yo mama.

[Is it cold in here?]

Who is Martin.

Fay's roommate. The cast member who first met Hannelore. One of Jeff's main characters.

[benji]

Who is Martin.

[Carl-E]

Who is Martin.

Fay's roommate. The cast member who first met Hannelore. One of Jeff's main characters.

Is it cold in hair? 
Dick attack survivor

[Evilproduct]

I can't believe he actually did it, I can't believe Marten and Dora have broken up....I'm so sad right now.

Okay, fine you want to make Marten miserable, how about we focus on Faye and Angus now because they are officially the cutest couple in QC now.

AngusxFaye
SvenxHanners

and you know what TaixDora. we need some lesbian action after breaking our hearts with Marten Dora.

[SerrJ215]

You know I am interested in how this is going to go becuase for they way I see it, Jeff has written himself into a corner. I mean Dora and Martin are both main characters and the other characters are both so integrated with each other. It is going to be interesting to see where the divisions take place.



Also the poor bastard all in one day lost his woman, the 1/3rd rent she was paying, and his favoirte coffee shop I mean if it was me I could never go in there agian. Also how the hell is Fay going to keep working for somone that did that to her best friend? Hell I dont even know how he could go into the room that they shared like that, at this point I would be on a bus someplace.  (Yes I know I am taking this all to serously but this kind of crap happend to me and it took me about a year to work thrrough it.)

[michael28]

If I were him, I'd sit in a plane heading to California. Not even that state could be more crazy than this town he's currently living in.

[eyosgkxb]

Who is Martin.

[reboundstudent]

All right, quite a lot of posters are laminating their own relationship problems onto Marten/Dora in a previous thread, so I’ll go ahead and throw my hat into the ring, because I’ve been (and somewhat am) where Dora is, and a lot of people who are dumping on Dora seem incapable of wrapping their heads around her situation.
First, most posts I’m seeing here are ripping into Dora for not “dealing with her issues.” As I said in an earlier post of mine, therapy is expensive. And dealing with the kind of issues Dora has OUTSIDE of therapy is damn near impossible, even when you have a pretty good grasp of what they are. Some people have suggested “she should talk to her friends!! Communicate with Marten and Faye!” In the end, that just doesn’t work. Friends are NOT therapists… they don’t know how to reach you. They don’t know how to set their own stuff aside, and help Dora first and foremost. They get emotionally exhausted and drained.
 
My therapist likes to say that she works for ME. She is simultaneously looking out for my best interests while being completely on my side. That is an incredibly difficult balance for friends, especially when THEY are a factor in what’s causing your issues. Marten and Faye may be acting in a way that is purely platonic from THEIR perspective, but from Dora’s perspective (which is colored by Distrustful Sunglasses), the behavior is suspicious, or unsettling. She can’t go to Faye or Marten for that… because they’re INSIDE the situation; because THEY know their own thoughts and feelings, they can’t see how their behavior might be contributing. With a therapist, Dora might be able to better articulate how to talk to them about the behavior while still honoring their perspective.

But again… therapy is EXPENSIVE. Therapy is DIFFICULT. Working on issues takes years, and that’s with a good therapist. Dora has mountains to climb. Frankly, if she has as severe trust issues as these comics seem to portray, she’s done an amazing job dealing with them as long as she has. When I’m not in therapy, I can’t go two months without exploding into a mountain of crazy.
 
So I kind of wish all the people chiming in that DORA ISN’T WORKING ON HER ISSUES could articulate WHAT exactly that would look like to them. Just the fact that she can communicate them to Marten is an improvement. 

[eyosgkxb]

All right, quite a lot of posters are laminating their own relationship problems onto Marten/Dora in a previous thread, so I’ll go ahead and throw my hat into the ring, because I’ve been (and somewhat am) where Dora is, and a lot of people who are dumping on Dora seem incapable of wrapping their heads around her situation.
First, most posts I’m seeing here are ripping into Dora for not “dealing with her issues.” As I said in an earlier post of mine, therapy is expensive. And dealing with the kind of issues Dora has OUTSIDE of therapy is damn near impossible, even when you have a pretty good grasp of what they are. Some people have suggested “she should talk to her friends!! Communicate with Marten and Faye!” In the end, that just doesn’t work. Friends are NOT therapists… they don’t know how to reach you. They don’t know how to set their own stuff aside, and help Dora first and foremost. They get emotionally exhausted and drained.
 
My therapist likes to say that she works for ME. She is simultaneously looking out for my best interests while being completely on my side. That is an incredibly difficult balance for friends, especially when THEY are a factor in what’s causing your issues. Marten and Faye may be acting in a way that is purely platonic from THEIR perspective, but from Dora’s perspective (which is colored by Distrustful Sunglasses), the behavior is suspicious, or unsettling. She can’t go to Faye or Marten for that… because they’re INSIDE the situation; because THEY know their own thoughts and feelings, they can’t see how their behavior might be contributing. With a therapist, Dora might be able to better articulate how to talk to them about the behavior while still honoring their perspective.

But again… therapy is EXPENSIVE. Therapy is DIFFICULT. Working on issues takes years, and that’s with a good therapist. Dora has mountains to climb. Frankly, if she has as severe trust issues as these comics seem to portray, she’s done an amazing job dealing with them as long as she has. When I’m not in therapy, I can’t go two months without exploding into a mountain of crazy.
 
So I kind of wish all the people chiming in that DORA ISN’T WORKING ON HER ISSUES could articulate WHAT exactly that would look like to them. Just the fact that she can communicate them to Marten is an improvement. 

Maybe she could break up with Marten and work on herself for awhile, you know come out a new person without dragging him through the mud. She knows shes dragging him through the mud, so it was generally be for the best.

o wai..

[ElvisRevenge]

Ever wished you could forget QC, just so you could have the fun of "discovering" it again?

I don't know how Jeph did it, but that relationship has always felt "temporary" somehow.

I feel the sentiments of both these posts.

There hasn't been another comic that gave me such satisfaction reading it all the way through like this comic has. (Well, maybe Darwin Carmichael Is Going To Hell, but that had a LOT less strips under it's belt when I started reading.)

And with the second thought, I'm the sort of man who doesn't see "off-limits" or "permanent" until HE PUTTA RING AND IF HE LIKED IT THEN HE SHOULDA PUTTA RING ON IT. And idk, they just never seemed hyper-close or like best friends, which the best relationships are based on (best friendship, imo).

[Econoclast]

Pfft. Therapy? Dora just needs to grow the fuck up.

I like that Marten finally grew a pair, though. He'll need that if he ever wants to get laid again.

[Carl-E]

How charming! 

[jwhouk]

That "put a ring on it" comment got me thinking:

Dora's never gonna be the flower girl now, is she?

[TheEvilDog]

I think the crux of the matter simply was, both Dora and Marten had issues, which they've ignored since we, the readers, first read the comics. By ignoring these issues, they were allowed to fester, and spread and infect. I mean, look at when we first met Marten (and I will be sticking with him for this example), he's lonely, depressed, hates his job and just doesn't have the willpower to actually try to change his life or to even talk to a woman in a bar.

It actually takes Faye to come up to him and say hi before we see any slight change in him, but it doesn't take.

It actually takes Dora to kiss him to make him realise that there was a girl right in front of him who actually wanted him. But it doesn't take.

It actually takes encouragement from his mother and Dora to consider quitting his dead end job, but of course, he was fired so he couldn't assert himself that way. And which leads him into a job which from all reasoning is perhaps even more tedious than his office job.

The majority of the major events in Marten's life have been enabled by other people or outside forces, which means Marten never learned anything for himself, how to stand up for himself, to go after what he wants. Even now, when the best thing that happened to him dumps him, his only reaction is the same default one that he has used since day one...retreating into himself. We see no postivie growth now, only growing anger, which, yes, it can be useful can also be far more dangerous than apathy.

Marten might have grown a pair of balls but it could also be the match thrown towards the powder keg. Which in a way, is a great tribute to Jeph's skills as a writer that there is the potential for such a Milquetoast character to transform into a seething mass of bitterness.

Both Marten and Dora need to recognise this now or things will get far worse.

And yes, I am one of those people who believes Marten should head home to California for a time, both to think things through and to get away from the sympathy and awkwardness that is bound to arise amongst the cast now.

[Is it cold in here?]

Well said. The pain will have been worth it in the long run if it gets him over the whole manatee on codeine problem.

[mira]

I think it's pretty telling that Dora broke up with Martin the first time Martin flat out tells her off for not respecting him. He was 100% right in his assessment of the situation. Dora can accuse him of any imaginary misdeed she likes, demanding some explanation and reassurance, but when called on the mat for her own ACTUAL misconduct she can't take it and drops him. I agree that she simply needs to grow up. Therapy isn't necessary for every case of run of the mill hypocrisy and immaturity.

Furthermore, this relationship didn't feel right in the first place. It made Martin look like a faithless dope to jump ship to Dora when he was falling for Faye.  The entire relationship never made sense to me, for the same reason it never made sense to Dora. I couldn't believe he didn't hold a candle for Faye. No one is that flexible in their romantic interests. Dora was always going to be second fiddle-if only because she literally WAS his second choice.  

I see talk in other threads about paring choices, Hanners seems to be winning popular points. I can't really see that happening either-and not because she's "crazy"-but because she's Hanners. And Martin, well, I'm disappointed in him. He shouldn't have gotten mixed up with Dora. She's too close to Faye and wasn't where his heart was leading him anyway. Now the whole social circle gets to pay for his inability to base his life on more than what stumbles across his path.

Thanks to Jeph for creating characters real enough for me to be "disappointed" in and care enough to post about.  

[Cmaley1]

Late to the party, I just discovered QC and finally caught up with it today

The break-up is to my utter dismay. While I chortled to myself in earlier comics when they had just started dating thinking 'how will this ever work', I now feel like with a little more patience, it could have.

However, I think Faye is too much the elephant in the room between the duo. Dora's insecurities in playing second-best would not end anytime soon and honestly, Faye is like a mental trigger for her that will always be present. Dora KNOWS that Faye was the first to win Marten's affections and that can't be erased but only looked past. Unfortunately for Dora, Faye is always there, and thus those little insecurities will always be lingering around.

As far as Marten goes, I think he really messed up letting Dora move in with him and Faye at the jump. That was a tell-tale sign that their relationship cannot progress past a certain point because Faye is still occupying some of his heart. The three of them should have seen that train wreck coming a mile away.

[Carl-E]

Sometimes in real life, from even a mile away, you just sit there and watch that train barrel down on you, trying to get the car off the tracks even though you know it's not worth it. 

[TheEvilDog]

And sometimes, people don't try to jump out of the way of the train, instead they run straight for it.

[Yellowstone]

As far as Marten goes, I think he really messed up letting Dora move in with him and Faye at the jump. That was a tell-tale sign that their relationship cannot progress past a certain point because Faye is still occupying some of his heart. The three of them should have seen that train wreck coming a mile away.

Of course Faye still occupies part of Marten's heart - they're best friends.  Sure, they started out as potential romantic interests, but in the 1300 strips since The Talk they've developed a deep platonic connection.  Sure, it's pretty unusual to have that sort of connection between people of opposite genders, but it's certainly not impossible.  And it's unfair of whoever Marten might wind up with to ask him to break that connection for the sake of the relationship.

I'll draw an analogy with another webcomic - Girls With Slingshots.  Marten and Faye have the sort of deep friendship that Jamie and Hazel have.  Does the Jamie/Hazel friendship mean that Hazel's relationship with Zach can't progress beyond a certain point?  After all, Jamie occupies a major place in Hazel's heart.

Furthermore, this relationship didn't feel right in the first place. It made Martin look like a faithless dope to jump ship to Dora when he was falling for Faye.  The entire relationship never made sense to me, for the same reason it never made sense to Dora. I couldn't believe he didn't hold a candle for Faye. No one is that flexible in their romantic interests. Dora was always going to be second fiddle-if only because she literally WAS his second choice.  

Quoting Marten and his mom from strip 447:

Veronica: What about Dora?  She seems considerably looser wound.

Marten: Dora's a great girl, but I can't just switch my affection from one person to another like that.  I need to see this Faye thing through to the end, whatever that end turns out to be.

It seems to me that Marten already recognized that Dora was someone he'd be willing to date, given the right circumstances.  And he did indeed "see this Faye thing through to the end."  Once he knew that it wasn't going to work, he moved on.  Probably not entirely by the time he started dating Dora, but a couple months in, by the time he and Dora knew that they made each other happy?  I'd imagine he'd fully gotten over it by then.

It's also worth pointing out that Marten befriended Faye a good bit before he befriended Dora.  If it had been Dora that had approached him in strip 4, and Faye whom he got to know a few hundred strips in, who's to say he wouldn't have been waiting to see how the Dora thing panned out before moving on to Faye?  I don't think we can say that his initial focus on Faye over Dora represents a preference for Faye over Dora, when it could just be due to the sequence in which they met.

[Cmaley1]

You know, giving it a little more thought, I think some of this break-up involves Marten as well. He has an inability to be an initiator. Marten doesn't take initiative too often; he is great at reciprocation and that makes him a great friend and advice-giver, but Marten struggles with speaking his mind and being the one to address issues. Marten puts his foot in his mouth too often because he doesn't know how to finish something he's started, like when he confronted Ellen (I believe that was her name...Steve's first girlfriend in the series) and now when he confronts Dora he steamrolls into a conversation he wasn't prepared for and has nothing to say.

Of course Faye still occupies part of Marten's heart - they're best friends.  Sure, they started out as potential romantic interests, but in the 1300 strips since The Talk they've developed a deep platonic connection.  Sure, it's pretty unusual to have that sort of connection between people of opposite genders, but it's certainly not impossible.  And it's unfair of whoever Marten might wind up with to ask him to break that connection for the sake of the relationship.

I agree in that no one can break the friendship Faye and Marten have, and that it is unfair to suggest such. But, it is unfair to put Dora into a situation that will always remind her of her insecurities concerning Marten's feelings for Faye. Granted, Dora should have recognized the situation as being a hazardous one, too.